page_title: Germanic peoples
section_title: From Western Roman Empire to medieval kingdoms (420–568)
hierarchical_section_title: Germanic peoples / History / Migration Period (ca. 375–568) / From Western Roman Empire to medieval kingdoms (420–568)
caption_attribution_description: English: Political division in Europe, North Africa and Near East after the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Español: Mapa político de Europa, el Norte de África y Oriente Próximo tras el fin del Imperio Romano de Occidente en 476 d.C.
context_page_description: The Germanic peoples are a category of north European ethnic groups, first mentioned by Graeco-Roman authors. They are also associated with Germanic languages, which originated and dispersed among them, and are one of several criteria used to define Germanic ethnicity.
  Although the English language possesses the adjective Germanic as distinct from German, it lacks an equivalent distinct noun. The terms Germanic peoples and Germani are therefore used by modern English-speaking scholars to avoid confusion with the inhabitants of present-day Germany, including the modern "German" people and language.
  Starting with Julius Caesar, several Roman Empire authors placed their homeland, Germania, roughly between the Lower Rhine and the Vistula Rivers, and distinguished them from other broad categories of peoples better known to Rome, especially the Celtic Gauls to their southwest, and "Scythian" Sarmatians to their further east and southeast. Greek writers, in contrast, consistently categorized the Germanic peoples from east of the Rhine as Gauls.
context_section_description: The Western Roman Empire declined gradually in the 5th and 6th centuries, and the eastern emperors had only limited control over events in Italy and the western empire. Germanic speakers, who by now dominated the Roman military in Europe, and lived both inside and outside the empire, played many roles in this complex dynamic. Notably, as the old territory of the western empire came to be ruled on a regional basis, the barbarian military forces, ruled now by kings, took over administration with differing levels of success. With some exceptions, such as the Alans and Bretons, most of these new political entities identified themselves with a Germanic-speaking heritage.
  In the 420s, Flavius Aëtius was a general who successfully used Hunnish forces on several occasions, fighting Roman factions and various barbarians including Goths and Franks. In 429 he was elevated to the rank of magister militum in the western empire, which eventually allowed him to gain control of much of its policy by 433. One of his first conflicts was with Boniface, a rebellious governor of the province of Africa in modern Tunisia and Libya. Both sides sought an alliance with the Vandals based in southern Spain who had acquired a fleet there. In this context, the Vandal and Alan kingdom of North Africa and the western Mediterranean would come into being.
  In 433 Aëtius was in exile and spent time in the Hunnish domain.
  In 434, the Vandals were granted the control of some parts of northwest Africa, but Aëtius defeated Boniface using Hunnish forces.
  In 436 Aëtius defeated the Burgundians on the Rhine with the help of Hunnish forces.
  In 439 the Vandals and their allies captured Carthage. The Romans made a new agreement recognizing the Visigothic kingdom.
  In 440, the Hunnish "empire" as it could now be called, under Attila and his brother Bleda began a series of attacks over the Danube into the eastern empire, and the Danubian part of the western empire. They received enormous payments from the eastern empire and then focused their attentions to the west, where they were already familiar with the situation, and in friendly contact with the African Vandals.
  In 442 Aëtius seems to have granted the Alans who had remained in Gaul a kingdom, apparently including Orléans, possibly to counter local independent Roman groups (so called Bagaudae, who also competed for power in Iberia).
  In 443 Aëtius settled the Burgundians from the Rhine deeper in the empire, in Savoy in Gaul.
  In 451, the large mixed force of Attila crossed the Rhine but was defeated by Aetius with forces from the settled barbarians in Gaul - Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians and Alans.
  In 452 Attila attacked Italy, but had to retreat to the Middle Danube because of an outbreak of disease.
  In 453, Aëtius and Attila both died.
  In 454, the Hunnish alliance divided and the Huns fought the Battle of Nedao against their former Germanic vassals. The names of the peoples who had made up the empire appear in records again. Several of them were allowed to become federates of the eastern empire in the Balkans, and others created kingdoms in the Middle Danube.
  In the subsequent decades, the Franks and Alamanni tended to remain in small kingdoms but these began to extend deeper into the empire. In northern Gaul, a Roman military "King of Franks" also seems to have existed, Childeric I, whose successor Clovis I established dominance of the smaller kingdoms of the Franks and Alamanni, whom they defeated at the Battle of Zülpich in 496. 
  Compared to Gaul, what happened in Roman Britain, which was similarly both isolated from Italy and heavily Romanized, is less clearly recorded. However the end result was similar, with a Germanic-speaking military class, the Anglo-Saxons, taking over administration of what remained of Roman society, and conflict between an unknown number of regional powers. While major parts of Gaul and Britain redefined themselves ethnically on the basis of their new rulers, as Francia and England, in England the main population also became Germanic-speaking. The exact reasons for the difference are u
caption: Germanic kingdoms and peoples after the end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE
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